Crab apples, I’ve known they were here for the last few weeks, from the scent that hangs in the air, just haven’t seen them fallen in the same place as last year, under that tree, and looking up there are precious few on the branches. After the weekend winds and rain I find them, piled up in the verge, hidden among the grasses, nestling further along, another tree. I scoop them up, enough to fill half my bag on the way to the shops. I come back laden with turnips for carving into heads. Back in the studio I open the string a fathom’s breadth, divide it only approximately into two and tie an apple on each end. The twinned fruits make a pendulum, drawn together, separating and then nudging and nustling one another above the prickly hoard from last week, the orange string is neon, a shriek, and a bolt, all is afizz with energy, fruity weighty prickly below and above fragrant swings, twisting strings and kissing apples.
The big old bulk of the lime on the mound navel worts gathering at its bole, crowds forming, expectations.